Birthdays
by savvyliterate
Summary: Five birthdays in the life of Lorelai Gilmore.


_16_

Lorelai spends her sixteenth birthday in a daze, because two drugstore pregnancy tests inform her of the gift that she really, really wasn't expecting.

The warning signs had gone off when she was trying on her latest froofy white debutante gown a couple days earlier, but this was the absolute proof. She sits in the stall in the girls bathroom, the bell cheerfully informing her that she was late for algebra class. But algebra didn't seem important anymore because holy hell there was a _baby_ growing in her.

Her plans had involved a formal party with her parents, sneaking out when they went to bed, and having lots of booze with her friends. Scrapping the booze now, clearly. Lorelai suddenly worries if she's drank too much, then remembers that even the idea of alcohol just hadn't sounded good in at least two months. The kid clearly had excellent self-preservation techniques.

Lorelai sighs and rests her hand on her stomach. Maybe she could at least have cake.

* * *

 _21_

"This is so exciting!" her new friend Sookie gushes as she trails Lorelai into the liquor store. "Your first legal alcohol purchase! I bet you can't wait to be carded."

There was a line of people waiting for the one cashier, but Lorelai already knows what she wants. Being carded was something that had terrified her in the pre-Rory party era. But other than a few glasses of wine here and there, her life just wasn't one that involved booze. Now right now, not with Rory being so small.

She grabs tequila and all the fixings to make margaritas and turns to join Sookie, who was waiting by the register. She nearly bowls over a tall man holding a bottle of whiskey and backs away. "Sorry, sorry," Lorelai laughs. "First time. Legal and all!" She flashes her brightest smile at the guy, who seems lost in his own world. Shrugging, she pays for her liquor and proudly flashes her ID.

She's not sure why she glances back at the guy with the whiskey. He didn't seem much older than her, and he looked so tired, so sad. He was kind of cute, even with the backwards baseball hat look going on.

* * *

 _30_

"This is a big milestone, doll," Babette gushes as Lorelai and Rory have breakfast at the diner the morning she turns 30. "Trust me, your 30s are gonna be spectacular. Isn't that right, Luke?" She elbows him as he weaves past him to put Lorelai's pancakes in front of her.

"It's just a day like any other," he grumbles.

"Believe me," Miss Patty says from the table next to Lorelai's, "your 30s are going to be some of the best years of your life. The sex is just phenomenal."

"Maybe that's a sign you'll actually go on a date," Rory teases.

Lorelai gasps at her and Rory giggles before pushing the first of many small gifts across the table to her.

When she goes to pay for her breakfast, Luke waves her away. "Don't worry about it."

"Really?"

He shrugs. "Just because I don't do birthdays doesn't mean you shouldn't get a gift."

"Free breakfast, pal, is the best gift ever." Lorelai's heart flips over in her chest, and she's almost terrified to wonder why it's doing that. "Thanks, Luke."

His head snaps up in shock, and that's when Lorelai realizes it's the first time she's ever called him by his real name.

* * *

 _40_

"Where are my flamingos?"

In a musty motel room in the middle of North Carolina, Rory pushes herself into a sitting position. "What?" she slurs sleepily into her cell phone.

"Today's my 40th birthday, and I am sorely lacking in flamingos!"

"What? Shit, shit, I'm sorry!" Rory throws back her covers in a rush, not that there's anything she can do about it. "I know we made a pact."

"An eternal pact."

"An eternal pact."

"That the entire front lawn would covered with flamingos on my 40th birthday."

"I'm sorry."

"We pinky swore and everything. Paul Anka was witness."

"We'll do it for your 50th."

"It won't be the same."

"Well, you're just going to have to do something slutty with Luke to make up for your lack of flamingos."

"We've already done that this morning," Lorelai says primly, with a great deal of pride.

Rory flops back on the bed with a groan, wondering if 6:23 a.m. was too early get really, really drunk.

* * *

 _50_

Lorelai wakes up to an eerily quiet house. Like, stupid eerie quiet. The sort of quiet that meant the game's afoot.

She rubs her hands together in glee.

She dresses and creeps downstairs. No husband. No dog. No daughter. No grandson. She has been left to her own devices.

A peek out the front window reveals a distinct lack of pink flamingos, but somehow Lorelai suspects that Luke vetoed that idea.

They have been planning something, her wonderful town. She knows of at least one secret town meeting, and it took an extended round of retail therapy to get over the urge to crash it. She thinks Sookie and Jackson returned from the farm for it. She knows her mother's in town.

Stomach giddy with anticipation, Lorelai snags a birthday Mallomar off the table and sets out for the diner, enjoy the walk through the eerily quiet town. She wonders how they're going to top the giant pizza Rory managed to order for her 35th birthday.

Munching happily, she turns the corner and comes to a complete halt. Her jaw drops. Snaps back shut. Drops again.

Before her sits a giant coffee cup, at least 10 feet high. A human chain of Stars Hollow residents stretches from the diner to the cup, hauling coffee by what looks to be the bucketload.

"Oh my god," Lorelai breathes and runs full tilt into the diner to see her family and friends clustering around what seemed to be every coffee maker in town. Every power outlet was being used, and she saw more people back in the kitchen.

"There she is!" Rory chirps from her place behind the counter, manning the diner's coffee machine. "Say happy birthday to Grandma!"

Tiny Richard scoots across the room on wobbly legs, walking a relatively new thing in his life. He practically flings himself at Lorelai's legs, sucking on a pacifier as he stares up at her with the same blue eyes she and Rory has. Lorelai scoops him up, pressing a kiss to his soft cheek.

"Are we really going for it?" she asks Rory.

"We're really going for it," Rory replies. "Guinness Book of World Records for the largest cup of coffee!"

April comes bouncing into the diner at that point, waving her smartphone. "Happy birthday, Lorelai," she practically sings. "We're at 342 gallons now."

"We have to get more than 1,010," Rory tells her. "We've been at it since 5. Grandma's out there supervising the huge lunch that's going along with it."

"You got my mother involved?" Lorelai gasps. "How?"

"It was all Dad," April says before Rory can answer.

"I wanted to do it last year, but didn't think we could pull it off," Rory adds. "Then suddenly, Luke called two months ago and asked if I still wanted to do it. He planned everything from there."

Lorelai's heart promptly trips over itself. "I didn't think he'd ever do it!"

"Somehow," Rory muses, "I wonder if he's been planning this for the past few years."

The diner's front door opens again, and Luke is barely two steps inside before Lorelai tackles him, baby and all. She has him up against the doorjamb, kissing him until his eyes glaze over and he starts to kiss her back. The baby squirms, and Lorelai puts him down so he can toddle back to Rory while she throughly thanks her husband. Well, as much as she can without violating public decency laws.

"Marry me," Lorelai begs.

Luke smirks at her. "Been there, done that."

"I don't care, I want to marry you all over again." Lorelai gestures toward the town square. "I can't believe you're doing this. This is the best birthday ever."

"Finally beat the giant pizza," Rory says as she pours coffee into a bucket that April holds.

"I just want you to be happy," Luke tells her. "Even if that's enough caffeine to give you 17,000 heart attacks."

Lorelai remembers a day from long ago when he told her the same thing, and that was when she knew that they would finally get to spend the rest of their lives together. So she kisses him again, out of love and nostalgia and sheer joy.

Then she starts planning for her 60th birthday.

* * *

 _A very happy 50th birthday to the reigning Lorelai!_


End file.
